Limousin

Limousin is the north-westernmost dialect of Occitan, spoken across the old province of Limousin and the neighbouring county of La Marche, on the western edge of the Massif Central. Its name comes from the Lemovices, the Gaulish tribe whose Roman capital, Augustoritum, grew into Limoges; excavations at Tintignac have recovered Celtic war trumpets, carnyces, from one of their sanctuaries.

Some of the earliest Occitan-like vernacular texts, above all the poem Boecis of around 1000, use an early Limousin form. Limoges, with its Abbey of Saint-Martial, was a centre of medieval music and of troubadour poetry flourishing in Limousin castles, and the dukes of Aquitaine were invested there.

The viscounts of Limoges and local lords ruled a country that passed with Aquitaine under English Plantagenet claims before the French crown retook it in the later Hundred Years' War. From the sixteenth century standard French made inroads, though Occitan long remained village speech; in 1790 the province was broken into new departments.